Big no for retyping llm generated code by hand.

But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain.

That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline.

And the constraint of not having to use llms will enhance creativity.

Actually, the constraints llms add to your code are more in number than the former. llms code in only the specific ways they've been trained on. So you won't ever come across of other ways.

Off the top of my head.. here's RubyQuiz.com [0] which I came across when I was learning ruby more than a decade ago. Looking at the many user-submitted solutions (you have to download the zip file!) you'll see completely different ways the problems were solved.

Sure, many won't be deemed efficient or standard by today's llm or rubocop checks, but looking at their code.. and retyping them and seeing them work.. was crucial in how I was able to think in Ruby for solving coding problems.

I did the same with Go too, with the "learn go with tests" guide [1].

[0] - http://rubyquiz.com/

[1] - https://quii.gitbook.io/learn-go-with-tests

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain.

> That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline.

100% agree with this.

The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit.

I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity.

If you have the luxury of working for an employer that either doesn’t care or is oblivious to this, then 100% continue writing code by hand.

Or if you do work on the side (whether for fun or for profit) and are ok with lower productivity, then yes, stick to handwritten code.

But just because handwriting code is better for your brain and cognitive development, doesn’t mean that the industry will be in support of it.

There are jobs where llms can massively speed up delivery. Think about tiny/one man indie games for example, they can also get (stolen) assets almost for free. Helping with hobby projects, a subtype of that one man show.

Then there are sluggish corporate jobs. Here, even 10x speed up of development won't change delivery dates significantly or at all. I am in one such job, team leader has claude code higher tier and basically uses it for some more complex bash scripts and thats mostly it. Given this topic, I dont complain much, I value my long term senior skills way more than those new agentic ones.

The middle is... well somewhere middle.